Welcome to the Piano World Piano ForumsOver 2 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!

The thing is, when your an expert or at least experienced pianist, you can't expect everyone else to be. Personally, you will know a lot more about what's going on than the general audience, especially since some of them take to flaming and trolling (which I despise unless the trolling is really necessary). I'm sure most of us make at least one mistake that an expert in that field might scoff at. So, just bear the songs and if anyone refers to a piece as songs, then correct them. And if you can't take it anymore, listen to a few songs, and hope no one will confuse them for pieces!

Mark_C
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Registered: 11/11/09
Posts: 20004
Loc: New York

Originally Posted By: argerichfan

[re Schonberg's "The Great Pianists] I thought I was nuts for reading that incredible book around 50 times, or at least it has seemed that way. I think I can quote large amounts of it for memory. Truly a landmark work belonging in the collection of every member here.

I'm with you 1000%. I understand that some people in the business resent him and his books -- they say he didn't care enough about accuracy and he was a bit too full of himself. But I would guess it was more because of jealousy. I love that book, and when I look back through old reviews in the NY Times (which you can do on their website), I love seeing reviews of his. I would even agree that he was a little too full of himself but that's how it often is with stars.

Quote:

IMO Arthur Loesser's book 'Men, Women & Pianos' is also required reading, though it takes a very different approach than Schonberg. And at times, Loesser has a sense of humour which can all of a sudden creep up at the most unexpected moments. Delicious stuff.

The book has been sitting on my bookshelf for years -- I guess I viewed it as required buying but not necessarily required reading. You're motivating me to take a look.

Mark_C
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Registered: 11/11/09
Posts: 20004
Loc: New York

Originally Posted By: mr_roberts_z

Not to continue an off-topic discussion that ended a while ago, but after reading about Pachmann in The Great Pianists (many times...), I got curious enough to see if he really did gloat during his performances. Sure enough, for those that haven't heard it.

GREAT GET!!!I didn't know we could find stuff like that on youtube.

I knew about his bragging and gloating mainly from reading, but I also happened to hear a recording where he referred to himself as "The Peerless."

Mark_C
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Registered: 11/11/09
Posts: 20004
Loc: New York

Originally Posted By: Canonie

Thanks guys for book recommendation......

You see, sometimes "OT" is useful.

BTW.....I've been looking for a place to reply to you about the "Koufax" thing that you mildly complained about. I couldn't easily find a place because both relevant threads were "closed"!But anyway.....what I wanted to say was, first of all, sorry if I did bad, and I hope people will let me or anyone else know when we're straying in a bad way. But mainly, that thread was one of the ridiculous BS things by the nuisance guy who was posting all those stupid recordings, and by then I didn't think people were taking his threads seriously. The baseball stuff was a momentary digression about a member's avatar, and I didn't think it would be unwelcome. Sorry if it was!

BTW.....I've been looking for a place to reply to you about the "Koufax" thing that you mildly complained about. I couldn't easily find a place because both relevant threads were "closed"!But anyway.....what I wanted to say was, first of all, sorry if I did bad, and I hope people will let me or anyone else know when we're straying in a bad way. But mainly, that thread was one of the ridiculous BS things by the nuisance guy who was posting all those stupid recordings, and by then I didn't think people were taking his threads seriously. The baseball stuff was a momentary digression about a member's avatar, and I didn't think it would be unwelcome. Sorry if it was!

[personal message] i'm reading thinking "koufax, who is koufax, is this post for me...?... Ah now I remember. From (distant) memory I think I was complaining not about the digression (digressions can be anything from wonderful to fun to abit rude), but about something else, while trying to be gentle enough to give the impression that it didn't matter too much. More of a nudge, but i've forgotten what about. you really should enable PM so that we don't have to have these embarrassing conversations out loud like this. Ah...It's possible that i was complaining that you were trying very hard to get others to follow a forum rule, while happily breaking another.. You shouldn't go back there, this is a nice thread and I am enjoying the varied discussion. PM me if you want to say anything else about it, but I hope we just go back to the thread. [/personal message]

Yes I'm very glad to have the Schonberg book on order. The other Schoenberg text was recommended reading at music school, but unfortunately I didn't look at it

_________________________Composers manufacture a product that is universally deemed superfluous—at least until their music enters public consciousness, at which point people begin to say that they could not live without it.Alex Ross.

No, they are leveled by people who are sick and tired of people thinking that they are superior to others.

If you are unable to differentiate between people who have ego issues that make them think they are superior to others as people, and people who know they have knowledge about a given art, you are in for a very hard time of it. I have no reason to apologize for knowing what I know, nor for having the experience with music I have had, even as an amateur. Some of us actually do have knowledge and experience others may not have. If you confuse that fact that with some sort of ego issues, that's your problem, not everyone else's. With all due respect, if you have some sort of inferiority/authority thing going that makes you twitch whenever anyone demonstrates expertise, that is not their problem, it is yours.

Quote:

If you all haven't noticed, pianists like Horowitz, Argerich, Cziffra, etc. never made claims like this.

Claims like what?

Quote:

It is the same throughout almost all of the arts and other activities... The best and most talented people do not brag and make arrogant statements, and they accept people that are more ignorant of their art. The people that brag and are elitist are usually the less talented people who need to reassure themselves about their ability and knowledge.

You and I have no idea what the best and most talented people do and say in their everyday life and in dealings with others. But as a hint, if you start reading a lot of bios and and music history books, you'll find that a lot of the big talents bragged and were as arrogant as anybody. And that's just the stuff that got reported. Just yesterday I was listening to a piece on BBC Radio 3 about Mozart teaching someone, and how he wrote in the student's workbook "You are an ass. You are an ass."

I'll be Bach
Full Member
Registered: 02/11/09
Posts: 122
Loc: North Carolina

Originally Posted By: sotto voce

I think allegations of elitism are annoying.

Steven

You don't say...

Personally, I think the OP has it backwards, a generation ago, before the internet age. You had a relatively small chance of ever even hearing of let alone seeing Rubenstein playing Chopin's Heroic Polonaise. Now it is a click away and has 129,371 views.

To me it doesn't matter if it doesn't speak to others the way it does to me. But I like to think that some part of it sticks...even if only for a moment or to twitter to a friend that they heard something cool.

This country has managed to survive Elvis' pelvis which was going to make girls have babies spontaneously and it survived the mop cuts of John, Paul, George and even Ringo...and I would suggest that those that thought they would lead to damnation were wrong. That rather than showing our decline they sparked our imagination. I don't think our culture is in decline, just because I think lady gaga sucks and others don't. I just think I am getting older..."and way leads to way, and that makes all the difference."

Personally, I think the OP has it backwards, a generation ago, before the internet age. You had a relatively small chance of ever even hearing of let alone seeing Rubenstein playing Chopin's Heroic Polonaise. Now it is a click away and has 129,371 views.

To me it doesn't matter if it doesn't speak to others the way it does to me. But I like to think that some part of it sticks...even if only for a moment or to twitter to a friend that they heard something cool.

This country has managed to survive Elvis' pelvis which was going to make girls have babies spontaneously and it survived the mop cuts of John, Paul, George and even Ringo...and I would suggest that those that thought they would lead to damnation were wrong. That rather than showing our decline they sparked our imagination. I don't think our culture is in decline, just because I think lady gaga sucks and others don't. I just think I am getting older..."and way leads to way, and that makes all the difference."

That reference to Frost's poem is useful. What many don't realize is that it's on Frost's part intentionally grandiose, an old man who will be "sighing ages and ages hence" about taking this not very remarkable road over that one. The key words are inflated, self-important, and vain.

Now before you get into a snit, I'm not in any way calling you those things. I think we all see the world through the lens of our own experience and our own DNA. From time immemorial the older generation has complained about the younger. And I suppose in some ways I myself have become that inflated old man. I agree that there's so much more readily available information out there for the kids. One would have to be blind to argue otherwise. But I see a cheapening in our culture nonetheless, a creeping nastiness that deeply troubles me.

I'll be Bach
Full Member
Registered: 02/11/09
Posts: 122
Loc: North Carolina

Originally Posted By: cardguy

Originally Posted By: I'll be Bach

Originally Posted By: sotto voce

I think allegations of elitism are annoying.

Steven

You don't say...

Personally, I think the OP has it backwards, a generation ago, before the internet age. You had a relatively small chance of ever even hearing of let alone seeing Rubenstein playing Chopin's Heroic Polonaise. Now it is a click away and has 129,371 views.

To me it doesn't matter if it doesn't speak to others the way it does to me. But I like to think that some part of it sticks...even if only for a moment or to twitter to a friend that they heard something cool.

This country has managed to survive Elvis' pelvis which was going to make girls have babies spontaneously and it survived the mop cuts of John, Paul, George and even Ringo...and I would suggest that those that thought they would lead to damnation were wrong. That rather than showing our decline they sparked our imagination. I don't think our culture is in decline, just because I think lady gaga sucks and others don't. I just think I am getting older..."and way leads to way, and that makes all the difference."

That reference to Frost's poem is useful. What many don't realize is that it's on Frost's part intentionally grandiose, an old man who will be "sighing ages and ages hence" about taking this not very remarkable road over that one. The key words are inflated, self-important, and vain.

Now before you get into a snit, I'm not in any way calling you those things. I think we all see the world through the lens of our own experience and our own DNA. From time immemorial the older generation has complained about the younger. And I suppose in some ways I myself have become that inflated old man. I agree that there's so much more readily available information out there for the kids. One would have to be blind to argue otherwise. But I see a cheapening in our culture nonetheless, a creeping nastiness that deeply troubles me.

I'm probably wrong. Vain old men usually are, historically speaking.

Sigh. :>)

I too have always preferred the ironic interpretation of the poem...over the literal.

Since Frost explains both are really "worn about the same"...it will only be the subject who will later suggest that he took the road less traveled by.

When someone says, "I really liked your song", it always seems a little odd to me.But in all honesty, it is only because I was brought up to refer to instrumental music, as a piece, or composition.

At 55 years old, and not trained in any aspect of performance, teaching, or composition, when a 17 year old, or a 60 year old, says they liked my song, I am in no mood to correct them.Just grateful I can bring pleasure to someone, from something that gives pleasure to me, however basic my level.

"What an incredibly moving piece. I'm unfamiliar with the keyboard you are using (I'm new to digital keyboards) but the tonal quality and the ability to use such precise dynamics is amazing.", are the greatest reward.

I like my generation too. And I do use net-speak while texting and instant messaging. Wonder if it's shrinking my brain...? I do notice that kids these days don't read as much as I used to. All their leisure time is spent on computers or video games. So those who actually watch youtube videos of great classical performers are a cut above the rest already.

Speaking of sunspots, it occurred to me the other day that it makes absolutely no difference in my life whether I think of the sun as a huge ball of gas way out there in the centre of our solar system, or a ball of fire drawn across the sky each day by a chariot.

Mark_C
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Registered: 11/11/09
Posts: 20004
Loc: New York

Originally Posted By: 1RC

Speaking of sunspots, it occurred to me the other day that it makes absolutely no difference in my life whether I think of the sun as a huge ball of gas way out there in the centre of our solar system, or a ball of fire drawn across the sky each day by a chariot.

In case you're not just being clever .....I wanted to say that actually it does make a difference.

Because if you think the latter, chances are you're the kind of person who thinks a lot of other stupid stuff and makes a lot of stupid and possibly deadly decisions each and every day.

Hahah, true it'd take some serious sheltering for someone to grow up these days without knowing the basics of the solar system, which is pretty much all I've got anyways. I couldn't say just what gasses, hydrogen comes to mind, perhaps some piece of trivia the got picked up somewhere along the way. Whatever I DO know about the sun is pretty superficial knowledge anyways, and who can say what ideas we hold may turn out not to be entirely accurate anyways? There are people trying to figure out just what time is and how it works. I look at my clock and know when to arrive at work, yet don't have to first clue as to how this clock works nor how we came to divide the day up into two cycles of 12 hours.

Anyways, hypothetically if I were to have somehow grown up with some sort of mythical ideas about the sun I really doubt it would make any difference in how I live my life, I'd just be glad it's still shows up in the morning. There are so many things that we only have the most basic knowledge of, how many people know how their computers or cars work? Might as well call it magic.

Of course it's important and enriching to explore our curiousities! Every great discovery must have began as a curiousity. I guess this is just my longwinded way of saying we can't know everything, and so it's not so unusual to bump into someone who don't know what may seem to be a very basic fact to us (piece not song!), but chances are there's a field where we're just as ignorant.

I think we all see the world through the lens of our own experience and our own DNA. From time immemorial the older generation has complained about the younger. And I suppose in some ways I myself have become that inflated old man. I agree that there's so much more readily available information out there for the kids. One would have to be blind to argue otherwise. But I see a cheapening in our culture nonetheless, a creeping nastiness that deeply troubles me.

I'm probably wrong. Vain old men usually are, historically speaking.

Yes, the older generation always does complain about the younger and say that the world is going to pieces. I remember being on the receiving end of it when I was young. However, enough cultures actually have gone to pieces that at times there may be some truth to the complaint (and reason to worry). The trick is in figuring out what is just the usual intergenerational stuff, and what is actual change on a larger scale. I am pretty pessimistic about the bigger picture, myself.

Speaking of sunspots, it occurred to me the other day that it makes absolutely no difference in my life whether I think of the sun as a huge ball of gas way out there in the centre of our solar system, or a ball of fire drawn across the sky each day by a chariot.

In case you're not just being clever .....I wanted to say that actually it does make a difference.

Because if you think the latter, chances are you're the kind of person who thinks a lot of other stupid stuff and makes a lot of stupid and possibly deadly decisions each and every day.

I'm pretty sure we all go through life believing a whole bunch of stuff that is untrue, simply because it doesn't affect us in any practical way. Thinking the Sun is drawn across the sky by a chariot may be a particularly egregious example, but in theory I doubt it's much different from many of the other misconceptions I hold, and of which I am blissfully unaware.

Of course, if I continue in my misguided understanding of the Sun, having been shown conclusively that it is incorrect, that is where deadly decisions can start to be taken.

No, they are leveled by people who are sick and tired of people thinking that they are superior to others.

If you are unable to differentiate between people who have ego issues that make them think they are superior to others as people, and people who know they have knowledge about a given art, you are in for a very hard time of it. I have no reason to apologize for knowing what I know, nor for having the experience with music I have had, even as an amateur. Some of us actually do have knowledge and experience others may not have. If you confuse that fact that with some sort of ego issues, that's your problem, not everyone else's. With all due respect, if you have some sort of inferiority/authority thing going that makes you twitch whenever anyone demonstrates expertise, that is not their problem, it is yours.

Quote:

If you all haven't noticed, pianists like Horowitz, Argerich, Cziffra, etc. never made claims like this.

Claims like what?

Quote:

It is the same throughout almost all of the arts and other activities... The best and most talented people do not brag and make arrogant statements, and they accept people that are more ignorant of their art. The people that brag and are elitist are usually the less talented people who need to reassure themselves about their ability and knowledge.

You and I have no idea what the best and most talented people do and say in their everyday life and in dealings with others. But as a hint, if you start reading a lot of bios and and music history books, you'll find that a lot of the big talents bragged and were as arrogant as anybody. And that's just the stuff that got reported. Just yesterday I was listening to a piece on BBC Radio 3 about Mozart teaching someone, and how he wrote in the student's workbook "You are an ass. You are an ass."

Thanks, WR; my thoughts exactly. I just couldn't put it into words as well as you.

With that Mozart, quote, though: considering what we now know about him, that may have been intended as a compliment.

I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but after reading some YouTube comments, I have come to the conclusion that there are a bunch of stupid people out there. That being said, I am even more shocked by some of the rude responses to videos. Dear old mom would knock me through a wall if I said some of those rude comments.

Life is Hard. It is even harder when your stupid. Get an education. It is the best investment you can give yourself.

On occasion, someone will take the time to give a thoughtful comment appropriately expressed in respectful and helpful language. Alas, this is all too rare. Most of the short comments are innocuous enough ... things like 'thumbs up' or 'awesome, dude.' But a lot of the negative commentary seems ego-driven and quite ignorant. Also, many of the most critical commentary comes from people who do not have any work of their own available for review. In other words they have very little standing to criticize, other than that they have a public platform and an opinion. Also, much of the most negative commentary is very poorly argued. Much of it is also very badly written.

I think that you'll find a very wide variety of comments on youtube: thoughtful ones, knowledgable ones, ignorant ones, and mere spam. It's difficult to generalize about youtube users, as there are both great ones and horrible ones. For what it's worth, people may not be as stupid as they sound in some cases. A lot of posters will make outrageous or offensive comments when they are protected by the anonymity of the Internet. It may not be a reflection of how they would act in real life.

(In response to a surpassingly difficult Chopin etude) "I played this song 10 years ago. My teacher liked the way I played it. LOL."

"Can anyone tell me where I can get the sheets to this song? LOL"

I'm just making these up as I go along, but catches the flavor I think.

Accuse me of elitism if you want, or perhaps grumpy old mannism, but I can't shake the depressing sense that our culture is in decline.... Of course, it's also true that I was a drooling idiot myself until I hit 40 or so :-)

As another grumpy quadragenerian to another, I can agree that it is irksome to see how our society has crumbled if you based it purely on this type of evidence. Having not so long ago gone back to school for a new career, and assimilating with a class of people at least a generation younger than I, I learned some things about how communications (espeicially online) have evolved.

Online text communications can be rather sterile, so people who are very comfortable with them have grown pretty proficient at painting in their emotions, expressions, even body language, so that other people will understand their intents better. Could be that some of these inane comments are just a way of being coy and shading their statements with worded versions of what would otherwise be seen in body language, voice tone, etc if the conversation happened in person.

I get alot of comments that are mainly positive, but tend to be just things like 'omg' or 'dude this is awesome' (dont take this the wrong way - I am not showing off!) which is nice as you know people are enjoying your performance. However I strongly believe the vast majority of youtube listeners do not fully understand a good classical performance and how to compare one performance to another, which one is superior etc. I have seen some truly awful performances on youtube that have 10 million views and far better performances that have no where near that amount of views. Youtube is all about popularity and whether your video is top of the search page on youtube when you type something in. Everyone watches the first page normally, like when you google something, why bother to look through all the videos when you can select the most popular one thinking its automatically the best because it has most views and pops up first. I have almost given up on youtube as there are performers on there who think they are amazing and the best thing in the world because they have thousands of subscribers and people listening to them. No one cares about classical piano and true talented players, they would rather listen to the boy in his bedroom playing a digital piano and comment that he is the next Beethoven or Mozart!!! These are the kind of comments I detest most on youtube. How dare anyone say that about some pop playing pianist who cant read a note of music! What they dont realise is you cant call a piano player the next Mozart as Mozart was not famed for his piano playing anyway (Beethoven more so, yes) - try composing music when you are 6 years old of his quality and maybe yes you may be potentially the next Mozart, otherwise stop being ignorant and get an education.